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Little VINOD was promised by his dad that he would take him to the GEMINI CIRCUS for the last day’s show. That never happened as dad was held up by an emergency meeting at the office. His parents had to do lot of balancing acts for a couple of days to bring him back from that bitter disappointment.

Now master VINOD faced the humiliation of getting dropped from the school cricket team as the management found him superfluous with out the bowling ability in the 20-20 format. Again it took months to recover from the shock and other series of disappointments in narrowly missing No-1 rank, losing the cell phone presented by his uncle and so on. But luckily he was recovering from all of them as the latest disappointment erased the memory of earlier ones. Poor VINOD is not aware that there are more serious and heart breaking disappointments he is likely to face in the future for IIT, MEDICAL, ENGINEERING selection, job market, interviews, spouse selection, marital life, his own children and their career that would go endlessly until his last days.

Disappointments and the resultant frustrations are distressing yet inevitable part of everybody’s life with out any exception whatsoever. When things don’t turn out the way you hoped, you are struck with this DISAPPOINTMENT. But if only we look around the world, each and every body from politicians, sportsmen, artists, actors, housewives, farmers, technicians, great leaders, scientists and even beggars are experiencing this feeling on day to day basis. Immediate reaction to disappointments is based on the degree or the intensity of the damage that is likely to cause to your way of life. Normally we ponder over our mishandling of issues that has ended negative and even contemplate for different methods by which we should have tried our luck. While we can improve our style of handling for future challenges and get positive results, it is best not to analyze over spilt milk. But it is unfortunate that weak and fickle minded go to the extreme of murder, suicide etc when they cannot withstand the shock of failure in love, exams, loss of property and so on. The best way of coping with disappointment is FORGIVE THE PAST, HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE AND LIVE IN THE PRESENT. One has to understand the fundamental philosophy of life as told in most of the religion that everything happening in this world and even universe is by the ALMIGHTY’S grace with intention and precision with out giving scope for your indulgence. Still it is worth while to ponder over the following whenever disappointment strikes you.

• Stop, calm down, and give yourself some time. Things might not seem nearly so to-morrow.
• Get your feelings out in a way that doesn’t hurt you or anybody else.
• Talk about it with your parents or good friends.
• Ask yourself if this really worth getting angry or upset about.
• Think about what you can learn from the experience and you can do better next time.
• Don’t judge yourself. Failing at something doesn’t mean that you are a failure.

Fortunately or otherwise all are born with varying degrees of optimism and pessimism. An optimist always sees a challenge in disappointments. He sees it as a temporary situation-something that they will get past. He will also make a plan for recovery and take action to look to a brighter future. Pessimist sees a problem and the problem affects every aspect of his life and no solution to the problem in sight. There is some one to blame for his problem. If you argue with a pessimist he will insist each and every possible solution won’t work. For him there is no happy future. All are hopeless.

All of us are aware that our great ABDUL KALAM couldn’t be selected for air force that was his childhood dream. But nobody could stop him to reach astounding heights in science and technology including piloting an aircraft at an advanced age. Perhaps as good luck would have it, it was destined that he meet the failure in the interview so that he reaches the enviable height of becoming the No-1 citizen of INDIA and also versatile in teaching profession. If only we look in this angle there are many instances where the initial disappointments had only helped people to strike more glory and prosperity.

At the age of 9 a boy lost his mother. At 24 he became bankrupt in his business. When he reached 25 his fiancée died. By the time he was 26 was hospitalized for 6 months for nervous breakdown. From the age of 28 to 48 years he was defeated in different elections for 6 times up to the level of US SENATE. However at the age of 50 was elected to be the president of UNITED STATE OF AMERICA. It was this man of consistent failure which GOD called on to preserve a constitution which is now the oldest governing constitution of the world. GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE WHICH SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH—as he so eloquently described in the GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. He is none other than that great ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

A small story—The handsome prince was tall, athletic, fair and well trained in all martial arts including fencing. But the remarkable thing about his body was in spite of winning countless combats; he had come unscathed from all sorts’ of wounds, cuts and disfigurements. That spoke of his complete domination in all contests. On that day he was preparing himself to go for hunting along with his troupe in the adjoining forest. Before that he decorated himself and wanted to trim his beard and moustache to be done by the palace barber. It was unfortunate that barber accidentally inflicted a deep cut injury on his chin. The prince’s otherwise flawless face has acquired a permanent scar that may be mistaken for a wound sustained in a fencing contest. His anger and disappointment was at its peak and made him to order for the imprisonment of that barber, to be executed after his return from hunting. While trekking through the forest it was his bad luck that he lost the way, separated from his troupe and even fell to the clutches of barbaric local inhabitants who were waiting for a human to be sacrificed to their deity. But on closer examination of the prince they could notice a fresh deep cut flowing across the chin and as per their custom was found unfit to be offered as sacrifice and was let off. They also helped for his reunion with his staff. Needless to say that the prince turned full of gratitude for that barber and after his return to the kingdom he was released from prison with rewards for saving his life.

‘WE MUST ACCEPT FINITE DISAPPOINTMENT, BUT NEVER LOSE INFINITE HOPE”

BY J.PANCHAPAGESAN FLAT-11,130 GILL NAGAR EXTN STREET CHOOLAIMEDU CHENNAI PH-044 23744963 EMAIL id- jpanchapagesan@yahoo.co.in